The_Happy_Hob is no ordinary Twitch streamer. In 2016, he pulled off the first no-hit run of Dark Souls, stunning even series director Hidetaka Miyazaki. Last year, he one-upped himself by completing the whole series without getting hit. Now he’s added Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne to his marathon gauntlet. But recently, he 86-ed himself in pursuit of the internet’s favorite number: 69.
This run has been in the works for months. Hob broadcasts his attempts, which—even though he has this down to a science—still take multiple streams over the course of days. There is one ironclad rule: If he gets even the merest of scratches, he has to start the whole series over. Not just the game in which he got hit. The whole series.
Earlier this week, he was well on his way to finally achieving the even more impossible than the impossible he’s already achieved. He’d completed all three Dark Souls games and Bloodborne. No hits. He was three streams —or around 14 hours —into the marathon. Then he started Demon’s Souls, the underappreciated father of the tough-as-nails bloodline. There, he made a grim and costly miscalculation.
Hob decided to go toe-to-reptilian-foot-like-appendage with an optional tutorial boss called Vanguard. It’s far from the series’ steepest challenge, but it presents some specific challenges for a no-hit run. Vanguard’s strikes often scatter rubble that flies in a difficult-to-predict pattern. Hob wasn’t having much trouble avoiding that, but one of his post-dodge follow-up strikes left him out of position, at which point Vanguard turned ever so slightly, nicking Hob in the process.
A picture of poise and focus up until that moment, Hob immediately yelped in anguish. “No. Fuck! NOOOOOOOOOOOO,” he yelled. “No, dude. No! Not the fucking Vanguard!”
Pacing off screen in dejection, Hob explained why this defeat was especially devastating.
“You know why we fight that boss, motherfuckers?” he said. “So that there’s 69 bosses. We fight that guy entirely so that there’s 69 bosses. Because lol.”